Blue Velvet
by the savage barbie
Summary: His worst enemy wore blue velvet the night they ended up locked in the Geology Department basement together. — Zuko x Katara. Dynasty-verse, but stands alone. O/S.


**_A/N:_** _This is technically a prequel to_ _Midwinter Madness_ _, the very first story in the chronology of the Dynasty Series. It's the story of how Zuko and Katara got together._

* * *

 **BLUE VELVET**

* * *

 _She wore blue velvet  
Bluer than velvet were her eyes  
_ _"_ _Blue Velvet" — Lana Del Rey_

* * *

Katara hates no one more than Zuko Shinohai. His smug face, his well-kept hair, his indignance and disrespect for everyone other than himself. The money he flaunts and relies on comes from the destruction of the planet and slave labor and other things Katara despises.

Needless to say, the boy in half of her college classes makes her want to scream.

And, now, here she is, dressed to the nines for a charity event that she planned and he just waltzed into as a guest of honor, in a blue velvet dress a little darker than her eyes. She looks stunning, but, no one will see her, because at the moment she kicks the door progressively harder as she tries to escape the Geology Department basement.

"Someone will rescue us. Relax," says Zuko, glowering at her for no reason.

"Who is going to rescue us?" Katara snaps, throwing her arms up into the air. "No one knows we're here. We didn't tell anyone we were going down here to get the decorations _you_ forgot."

Zuko picks up a green crystal, tosses it and catches it. "You worry too much."

Katara snaps, "I'm sorry that I _have_ to worry. I wasn't born into the richest family alive." She tries the door again and shouts to no one in particular, "I must've been _so_ cruel to puppies in a previous life to deserve this!"

Zuko chuckles and she spins around, pressing her back to the door and holding back tears. "It's not that bad. So, we hate each other. It's good to hate people. It reminds them they aren't God's gift to the world."

"If only that worked on you," Katara exasperatedly says with a cavalier roll of her eyes. Despite the dim light, Zuko notices for the first time the exact shade of blue they are. He never noticed how vibrant and rare they were.

Prompted by those _lakes_ of irises, Zuko says, "We can spend the night just talking and getting to know each other." Pause. "You look really good in that dress. It'd be great to get to know you, talk out our problems—"

Katara's nostrils flare at the dress comment. Yes, she looks excellent and secretly loves to have perfect nails and a lovely outfit, but she does not need a man to tell her that. "Unfortunately for you, your highness, my brain cells commit suicide when you talk."

"You're so witty," sarcastically says Zuko, tossing and catching the green crystal again.

Katara sighs. "That was mean. I shouldn't have said that. I'm just frustrated that I'm stuck here with you. You've never exactly been nice to me."

"No. I guess I haven't," he admits, thinking of the countless classes during which he tortured her. In his defense, she and her boyfriend made him sick.

Katara licks her lips and nods. "I guess we should just focus on making it through the night. Now, do we have food or water?"

Zuko opens his backpack that does not match his now-dusty tuxedo. "I have an energy drink bottle secretly filled with vodka and two water bottles my dentist told me to carry around."

"Give me one of the water bottles," Katara orders, holding her hand out. "I'll share my food. I have two bags of trail mix that my boyfriend makes."

"Well, isn't that so cute of him." Zuko scoffs. "I have no clue why any girl would want him."

"He's into healing people too and we travel war-torn countries helping sick children. The kind of children your family uses for labor," Katara passionately defends, crossing her arms.

Zuko bristles. "It's legal in those countries."

"You make little kids go into mines against their will," Katara exclaims.

"There's a long history in this world of little kids who work in mines. They even did it in America before we made those laws that stopped it." Zuko turns up his palm.

Again, they stand silently. Zuko picks up a pen from an old jar of them and starts clicking it. Katara sighs and tries to be patient and kind like a good person. She loses it.

"Yes, Zuko, that pen still works," snaps Katara, punctuating her sentence with a growl.

He clicks it one more time and returns it to its dusty home.

"You don't have to be so aggressive," says Zuko, tossing and catching the crystal.

The silence returns with a vengeance. Time moves like molasses and Katara breaks first yet again, picking up a green crystal. "So, you're good at catch, huh?"

Zuko drops the one in his hand. "That looks extremely dangerous."

She throws hers in his direction. He dodges out of the way instead of grabbing it.

"You could've broken my limb or face or something more important!" he shouts, adding a stream of explitives along with the outburst.

"I'm sorry," says Katara in partial earnest. "I don't want to hurt you. You might annoy me, but I'm better than that. If you were dying, I'd probably save your life."

Zuko laughs. "Thanks. The feeling is mutual, except I don't really know how to save a life."

Katara just sits down and sips her water. He leans against the wall and stares at her for a good fifteen minutes until she groans and decides to speak up.

She drums her manicured nails on the scratched chair for a moment before saying, "I might not like you, but I don't want to offend you. I try not to offend people."

Zuko's eyebrows shoot up. "Oh, this sounds interesting. Not the awkward getting-to-know-you conversation."

Katara purses and unpurses her lips. "You have to promise not to get offended."

Zuko vigorously shakes his head. "I'm _not_ promising that. I never promise that. I can't control how I'll feel about what you say next."

Katara sighs. "Fine. What was the deal with that gloomy girl who used to come visit you?"

Zuko remembers why he hates Katara. "Do you not go to grocery store checkout lines?"

"She married your dad. I know," states Katara. "But what did you do to make that happen?"

"Why do you assume it's something _I_ did?" growls Zuko, glaring daggers.

"Because you have anger issues and are the most arrogant person I've ever come across."

"I broke up with her. She was pissed about it and they just… happened. I found out when I went home for a weekend and she was there in nothing but a silk robe." Zuko coldly laughs at the memory. "Why are you asking about my love life? Are you interested in me?"

"I couldn't be further from that. You just keep staring at me and I was wondering why someone as rich and well-connected as you can't find a girlfriend who doesn't hate his guts."

"Good question." Zuko picks at his lips. She whistles and he speaks again to shut her up. "I don't think you have any idea who I am."

"I'm pretty good with feelings and sensing who people are," Katara says, examining his unusually soft posture.

"You got a false reading with me." Zuko sighs and sits down. "I don't want anything to do with following in my forefathers' footsteps. It's really not what I want in life anymore. I thought I did. I thought it was the most important thing to me until I spent some time away from them all."

"You're still a spoiled brat who always needs to get his way."

"Everybody has room for improvement." Zuko finds his energy drink bottle. "You have room for improvement. You're preachy and self-righteous."

"I am _not_ preachy and self-righteous," Katara says as he waves it in her face.

Zuko rescinds the kind offer and sips from it himself. "And kind of a crybaby."

"When have you ever seen me cry?" Katara demands, her face reddening.

"All the time."

"At least I don't throw constant tantrums."

Zuko rolls his eyes and looks away. Katara does the same.

Each second pulses like a throbbing bruise, painful and steady and insistent and frustrating. This night seems to be endless.

"I really don't support child slavery. I was just trying to piss you off earlier," admits Zuko with a gentle shrug. Katara tilts her head to the side, startled by his sudden candor. "Enslaving children to work in mines is the kind of thing my father or grandfather or sister would do, however. My mom and uncle just raised me right."

"Mom and uncle?" Katara asks, thinking only of _Hamlet_.

"Mom and stepdad too. She married my uncle after divorcing my father."

"Ew. That's… a bit incestuous." Katara cocks an eyebrow.

Zuko says with an exasperated sigh, "You didn't strike me as the kind of person who read tabloids. But, I agree with you and those magazines. Saying uncle-dad just feels like something more fitting for _Game of Thrones_."

Katara cannot help but laugh at that. She stands and averts her eyes. Spilling her secrets to Zuko never will be on her agenda. But, as time ticks by at an infuriatingly slow pace, she decides to come clean about common ground.

"I was raised by my Gran-Gran," says Katara, edging slightly closer to him. He gets a better look at the way the blue velvet dress hugs her curves and the stunning shade of her eyes.

"Gran-Gran?" he asks, blinking several times to snap back to reality.

"Shut up." Katara cannot stop her cheeks from flushing. "She took good care of me and my brother, and she always felt like my mother. I was an orphan."

Zuko carelessly asks, "How did you become an orphan?"

Katara narrows her beautiful bluer-than-velvet eyes.

"My parents died."

It is Zuko's turn to laugh. "I guess that was a stupid question."

"My mom died in a car crash when I was little…" Katara averts her eyes. She usually does not talk about how her mother died saving her from a burning car. "My dad died at war. He was a soldier, so my Gran-Gran raised me while he was away."

"My cousin died when I was pretty young. He also was a soldier. I got close to my uncle after that. He was already a better dad than my own before my mom married him."

"Yeah. That's enough heart-to-heart conversation for the night," Katara says, snatching the bottle from him. He did not know sweet girls like her drank in Geology Department basements.

"You have something better to talk about?" Zuko asks.

"Nope," Katara says.

"Do you think someone locked us in here on purpose?" asks Zuko.

"Maybe. I've been told that we have sexual chemistry," she says half-mockingly half-seriously, "but I don't see it."

Zuko has the answer. "We're both really pretty and opposites attract."

"Mhm? Tell me how pretty I am."

"I know you're being indignant and sarcastic so I'm doing it anyway," says Zuko, smirking, "Your face radiates beauty and your eyes look like the ocean. And your hair smells like lemons."

Katara laughs. "That's enough of that, Cowboy Casanova. I feel like I just stepped into a low-budget teenage romance movie. The awful indie kind you can only find on Netflix."

He runs his hand through his hair. "I'm just telling you some beautiful truths."

"Beautiful truths? I see now why you aren't a playboy like the rest of the men in your family. You're too bad at flirting to get anyone in your bed." Her eyes sparkle and look even more like the pure blue arctic sea.

"And I thought you were too goody-goody to come up with a decent insult."

Katara breathes, "I'm full of surprises."

The silence yet again drives them both mad.

"I'm bored," complains Zuko, cracking his knuckles. It is one of Katara's pet peeves but she tolerates it tonight.

Katara, draping herself backwards over the seat, replies, "I'm more bored."

Silence. Silence. Silence.

Zuko slowly asks, "Wanna have sex?"

"That would be slightly better than sitting here silently for days until we die of starvation," earnestly replies Katara.

Being only human, she makes dumb and selfish decisions sometimes.

So does he.


End file.
